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Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald

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Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
Born26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1803
Died25 August [O.S. 13 August] 1882 (aged 78)
Tartu (Dorpat), Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire
Resting placeRaadi cemetery
OccupationWriter
MovementEstonian national awakening

Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1803 – 25 August [O.S. 13 August] 1882) was an Estonian writer and the author of Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg.

Life[edit]

Kreutzwald reading a manuscript of Kalevipoeg (painting by Johann Köler, 1864).
Kreuzwald Memorial in Võru by Amandus Adamson (1926).

Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald was born to Estonian parents[1] at the Jõepere (Jömper) estate, Governorate of Estonia (then part of Russian Empire). His father Juhan worked as a shoemaker and granary keeper and his mother Anne was a chambermaid. The family was able to send their son to school at the Rakvere (Wesenberg) district school.

In 1820, he graduated from secondary school in Tartu (Dorpat), and started working as an elementary school teacher. In 1833, Kreutzwald graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the Imperial University of Dorpat.

Bust of Kreutzwald by August Weizenberg, 1881

Kreutzwald married Marie Elisabeth Saedler on 18 August the same year. From 1833 to 1877, he worked as the municipal physician in Võru (Werro).[2] He was the member of many scientific societies in Europe and received honorary doctorates from several universities.

Works[edit]

Kreutzwald Memorial Museum in Võru

Kreutzwald is the author of several moralistic folk books, most of them translated into German: Plague of Wine 1840, The World and Some Things One Can Find in It 1848–49, Reynard the Fox 1850, and Wise Men of Gotham 1857. He wrote many works based on Estonian folklore, such as Old Estonian Fairy-Tales (1866), collections of verses, and the poem Lembitu (1885), published after his death.

Kreutzwald's magnum opus was the national epic Kalevipoeg (Kalev's Son),[3] which was composed using material initially gathered by his friend Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850). In 1839, Faehlmann had read a paper at the Learned Estonian Society about the legends of Kalevipoeg and sketched the plot for a national romantic epic poem.[4] In 1850, after Faehlmann's death, Kreutzwald started writing the poem, interpreting it as the reconstruction of an ancient oral epic. He collected oral stories and wove them together into a unified whole.

The first version of Kalevipoeg (1853; 13,817 verses) could not be printed due to censorship.[5] The second, thoroughly revised version (19,087 verses) was published in 1857–1861 in sequels as an academic publication in the Proceedings of the Learned Estonian Society. The publication included a translation into German. In 1862, the third, slightly abridged version (19,023 verses) was published. This edition of the book was intended for the general Estonian-speaking public, and printed in Kuopio, Grand Duchy of Finland (the then neighbouring province of the Russian Empire).

As Kalevipoeg became a bestseller, Kreutzwald soon reached the status of a symbolic leader of the mid-19th century Estonian national awakening. At the time, he was also widely considered a paragon for younger Estonian-speaking intellectuals.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ A. Plakans, A Concise History of the Baltic States (2011) p. 210
  2. ^ F-Reinhold Kreutzwald
  3. ^ J. D. Rateliff, The History of the Hobbit (2007) p. 181
  4. ^ T. Miljan ed., Historical Dictionary of Estonia (2004)
  5. ^ T. Miljan ed., Historical Dictionary of Estonia (2004)

External links[edit]